Faustus

Some interesting developments of with Obama of late: 1. He created for himself a pseudo presidential <SEAL> very much like the actual presidential seal and positioned it on his podium when speaking 2. He is going to make a trip to Iraq soon, and while passing through Europe has stated a desire to make a speech at the Brandenburg Gate. Previously two past presidents have made speeches there. John F. Kennedy (The "I am a Berliner" speech, early in the cold war) and Ronald Reagan ("Mr Gorbachev, bring down this wall" speech, at the height of the cold war) (He seems to be taking on the mantle of the presidency so that it is an accepted fact, before the fact.) 3. He will also likely exploit the speech in Berlin as an affirmation of his popularity abroad, the audacity of hope indeed.... I personally have no objection; I

A "Private" and "Public" Spaces: The Components of the Domus - The Relation of Inside to Outside: Yvon Th

The advantage that comes from being at the cultural center of a unified whole (an empire or cosmos) as compared to that of being an

The most important thing Rome did for ancient Greece was to pass on their Civilization to the west, better than they could have done it for themselves: [ In his book A History of Private Life

There has been a nine percent drop in the price of a barrel of oil in two days. This is on the cusp of certain members of the US Congress showing signs of weakening on drilling for more oil on American soil. Which party is seen to have a stanglehold on more drilling? Which party seems to be gelded on the subject? Announcements by which party would have that effect?

"He devised a new form for the buildings of the city and in front of the houses and apartments he erected porches, from the flat roofs of which fires could be fought; and these he put up at his own cost". In the view of any firefighter, the value of a porch with a flat roof is that it would be a good platform to work from (or gain access through a window) while not being immediately susceptible to the conflagration if the fire were contained inside of the building. But I wonder about the word

Salve SF, and interesting that you would bring that up. The villa is a greater complex than the home (domus), as it seemed to require or depend on a greater number of people beyond the way we consider the domus to work. The villa was more of a

Salve, A, and in return you also have my thanks for the latest information on tektites, and some strewn fields (some are missing I think) , and also the link to scientific thinking/scientific method, all of which I can benefit from. BTW Years back I subscribed to catalogues of new meteorite finds available for purchase (never bought any) , and I can look again at that possibility, at seemingly very low prices. Faustus

Thanks A. Thanks for your interest in my scientific foundation. It does need some shoring up. As an amateur astronomer of 50 plus years, and a follower of all reports scientific,my understanding of the

Salve Zanatos, That's as neat as it can be! Notice the grid system to the streets, how development proceded from the river, and how the grid was readjusted near the river to make the road pattern as efficient as possible. I put it up as my desktop background. What is built now in the triangluar (point) block at the lower right hand side of the photo in the foreground? A monument perhaps? Faustus

Anyhow, I still think the airblast from an ice meteorite (comet core?) is the best explanation. I have considered a couple of potential objections in previous posts. I for one lean more so toward the icy body because the amount of matter involved could more easily be obliterated leaving behind no detectable physical remnants; Ice to water vapor in an explosive blast of steam, and a dust layer with interstices, vaporized(?) and scattered. It is difficult for me to account for a massive rocky body 60 feet (tens of meters) in diameter being totally gone without a physical trace: a flaming fireball in one instance and totally annihilated in the next, without even the standard signature of iridium. A vaporized rocky meteorite should

Thanks for the summary, and the caveat. Here's some frequency information on stony meteorites of T(unguska)-sized objects and smaller:

A., please help me with that. Not being a scientist I

Salve A. All for the sake of argument (from a non-scientist) Except for the R-5 quake, which is only conjecture, (as are all my remarks) all of the conditions can be met by a tenuously agglomerated snowball interlaced with space dust serving to weld ancient collision aggregates into one large cometary object. If the height of the

Heck C. That's the whole idea. And the larger, the less frequent

The Tektite Mystery There are across America, and other parts of the world as well, large oval elliptical areas where green glassy tektites may be found. The shape and sizes of these areas are now called

The land area laid waste and immediately leveled (wooden structures) by Hiroshima

Consider the calculation methods for the size of the body that made the Chicxulub Crater for some perspective: "Using estimates of the total amount of iridium in the K

Going back to the opening post, the basic Aristocratic Roman domus (as distinguished from the an apartment house of Rome or Ostia, or the rural bungalo) began as an entryway leading to an atrium with rooms grouped around it. Later, onto that first section a rear section was added and rooms grouped around a peristylum. "Simple Domus Floor Plan" (SHOWN FOR ILLUSTRATION PURPOSES) The first section was Italian, and the names were Latin: The vestibulum, fauces, atrium, alae, tablinum, taberba, hortus. The rear or additional section, Greek in origin and design, had names which were Greek: the peristylum, triclinium, oecus, exhedra, (and then the aforementioned Italian (Latin named) hortus). Interestingly the connecting passage between the two sections (atrium to perstyle) was called the andron(es) where a confusion occurs, is a misuse or misapplication of the Greek word. As Vitruvius says: "Between the peristylium and the lodging rooms are passages, which are called Mesaul

An interesting aside L. Here are some links showing Roman "furnishings" from The House of the Faun. At the time of the eruption, it appears that Pompeiian homes contained only the bare minimum of furniture. Much of what did survive (assuming some cushions and other soft materials were lost) was bronze and iron in the form of folding stands, tables, braziers, etc. FLOOR PLAN for The House of the Faun. Edit: The (floor plan) link is from a 1958 source. Since then Salvatorre Nappo

Salve Amica, Amici

We usually call the roman house the

Beautiful family, beautiful horses, and beautiful scenery! It looks very relaxing and inviting there. especially in the heat of a midwestern summer.